Have you seen any shooting stars in the night sky recently? Two meteor showers are active right now!Â
Ursid Meteor Shower
You won't see as many headlines about this one because it doesn't produce as many meteors, but the Ursid shower is active from December 13 through the 24th. This shower is projected to give us peak activity around December 21-22, but maximum activity only gives us 5-10 meteors an hour on average. There have been years with as many as 25+ per hour during the peak, but those bursts are the exception, not the rule. Â
Geminid Meteor Shower
The Geminids are also currently active and likely peaked the night of December 13-14. This shower also stays active through December 24 and usually give us more to see. The Geminids are active every December, when Earth passes through a massive trail of dusty debris shed by a weird, rocky object named 3200 Phaethon. The dust and grit burn up when they run into Earth's atmosphere in a flurry of "shooting stars." In fact this is one of the best meteor showers of the year because of those bright "shooting stars" that have come to characterize this meteor shower.Â
Meteor showers are named after the location of the radiant, usually a star or constellation close to where they appear in the night sky. The Geminid radiant is in the constellation Gemini. For the Ursid shower, the radiant point is Ursa Minor - the Little Dipper. Both can be seen with the naked eye under clear, dark skies over most of the world, though the best view is from the Northern Hemisphere. For the chance to see a shooting star, you really just need to look up into the dark sky. Get as far away from lights as you can, including lights from your house and from the city. If you see a shooting star or catch one on camera, send it to us!Â
After dealing with rain and clouds most of the day Saturday, the clouds will start to clear out on Sunday. Then we have several days in a row under a partly or mostly sunny sky which should give you maximum viewing opportunity before these showers wrap up next week.Â
